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Titan (Moon) (WH40K)
Titan is the largest moon of the gas giant Saturn in the Sol System and is wholly controlled by the Grey Knights Chapter of psychically-active Space Marines who serve as the Chamber Militant of the Inquisition's Ordo Malleus. The fortress-monastery of the Grey Knights is based on Titan, and is carved entirely of basalt. Within the fortress hang pennants, banners and flags commemorating the victories and sacrifices made by the Chapter in their eternal war against the daemons of Chaos, but none other than the Grey Knights would recognise the names of these campaigns. This is because the Chapter operates in oppressive secrecy, beyond the knowledge of the Adeptus Terra, most of the Adeptus Astartes and even often of the Imperium of Man's ruling High Lords of Terra. As a part of the Ordo Malleus, the Grey Knights are answerable only to the Inquisitor Lords of that division of the Inquisition and the Emperor of Mankind Himself. Even the location of the Grey Knights' fortress-monastery on Titan is known only to the Ordo Malleus and its agents. Titan itself is surrounded by the rings of Saturn and the other moons of the gas giant which are all highly-secret Inquisition-controlled worlds, including: Mimas, the prison and execution centre of the Ordo Malleus, Enceladus, the home of the most powerful Inquisitor Lords of the Ordo Malleus and other influential Inquisitors of that Ordo, and several other satellite worlds all dedicated to the highly secret Imperial task of confronting the corruption of Chaos across the galaxy. History The Grey Knights Space Marine Chapter is the most mysterious of all the Imperium's myriad organisations. Few outside the upper echelons of the Inquisition hold any knowledge of the Chapter's Founding, and even these most trusted of men and women are denied the full truth. According to legend, the Grey Knights first appeared in the middle of the 32nd Millennium after the tumult of the Second Founding in the early 31st Millennium when the nine remaining Loyalist Space Marine Legions were first divided into the present-day organisations known as Chapters. Designated Chapter 666, the Grey Knights were the culmination of a project begun by the Emperor during the final days of the Horus Heresy. When the perfidy of His most favoured son, the Primarch Horus, was revealed following the events of the Istvaan III Atrocity, the Emperor foresaw that the end of the Horus Heresy would cost Him greatly, so much so that He would no longer be able to take an active hand in Mankind's survival -- if He survived at all. The very nature of the Horus Heresy had proven that the Space Marines were not immune to the corruption of Chaos as the Emperor had once hoped. So did the Emperor set His hand to plans that would win a wider victory from the ashes of a most personal defeat. Malcador the Sigillite, the Regent of Terra, a man who had served at the right hand of the Emperor for as long as anybody could remember, had been gathering to him men and women with particular talents since the end of the Great Crusade. At first working for him in an informal, secretive and ad hoc capacity, with the enemy at the gates of the Imperial Palace he shared his vision with the Emperor and brought before Him twelve beings of unswerving virtue who he had recruited on his master's behalf. By the time Malcador returned to his Emperor with these chosen men and women, Terra itself was under siege by Horus' Traitor Legions, and only through the most artful of subterfuge were the Sigillite and his recruits able to pass unscathed through the battlelines and come unharmed and unseen before the Emperor. Malcador initially chose 12 persons of "an inquisitive nature" -- four of those would become the founders of the Inquisition but the other eight, all Space Marines of differing Legions and unparalleled psykers in their own right, would become the eight founding members of the Grey Knights -- the first Grand Masters of the Chapter. In stern silence the Emperor surveyed the robed figures that Malcador had brought before Him, and He saw that his faithful servant had done well. Of the twelve, four were Imperial lords and administrators possessed of inquisitive nature and unyielding strength of mind. The other eight were Space Marines whose abilities were as peerless as their dedication to the Emperor. Some hailed from Legions that had abandoned the Emperor's light in favour of Horus' dark promises, but these Battle-Brothers had never lost their loyalty and had fought the Heresy from within. Fulsome in his approval of the selection, the Emperor bade Malcador proceed with the next stage of his plan. Titan So dismissed, Malcador and the twelve departed the embattled palace as unremarked as they had arrived. Yet when the group departed Terra they divided, for their destinies would be separate for a time. The four Imperial lords left to lay the framework of the Inquisition -- that mighty and secretive organisation charged with keeping watch over all arms of the Imperium to prevent both corruption within and attack from without -- while Malcador took the eight Space Marines to the moon of Saturn named Titan. Following the dire events of the Horus Heresy, across the galaxy, forces still loyal to the Arch-Traitor continued to fight the war he had declared, razing planets and claiming dominion over vast tranches of human worlds. The forbidden knowledge shown to Horus that had been the catalyst for his fall from grace bore other more sinister fruit, and dwellers from the other side of reality, the Empyrean, were now abroad in the material realm. Though many at the time of the Heresy believed the word to be childish and loaded with superstition, they came to be called "daemons," for lack of a better and more descriptive term in the Imperial Gothic language. Whatever name given to them, their existence itself was all too horribly apparent. At points all across the galaxy, the Materium had been worn thin and the veil between realities torn open. The Eye of Terror blinked open, casting its malign gaze on the destruction so freshly wrought as world after world became conduits for the unreal to enter the real. The Loyalist Legions were diminished, their fighting strength a paltry fraction of its pinnacle and their Primarchs dead or at each other's throats in the power vacuum that followed the Emperor's internment in the arcane mechanisms of the Golden Throne. While the Emperor had foreseen the myriad dangers humanity faced and created the Legions in His own image to combat them, even He could not have anticipated the monstrous forces now unleashed upon the Imperium. While the Legions had been bred to fight wars on the material realm, this new foe could battle on the immaterial front too, rendering Space Marines little more effective than the common mortal soldier when it came to psychic war. Many of the Legions had once welcomed psykers into their ranks but an Imperial edict at the Council of Nikaea barring His sons from utilising the potential of their Warp-gifted troops had been passed in the years before Horus' betrayal and endorsed by the Emperor Himself, eliminating the Librarius from every Legion. Denied the one weapon that could reasonably have altered the course of the opening stages of the interstellar civil war, in time the Primarchs came to see its true power and the Loyalist Legions gladly welcomed Librarians among their number once again. But one man had always known the capability of that weapon and had foreseen a time when humanity would need to fight the powers of the Warp with powers born of the Warp. Through sorcerous means, the Sigilite had long ago occluded the moon of Titan from the sight and deeds of Loyalists and Traitors alike, covertly building a fortress-monastery and equipping it with forbidden technologies and secret training facilities to prepare the new Chapter in its role defending the Imperium from daemonic incursion. Code-named "Othrys," in the old tongues of Terra it meant "the home of the titans." The symbolism of such a name seemed fitting to the Sigillite. New supplies of gene-seed, newly derived from the genetic material of the Emperor Himself, lay preserved in cryovaults, and fresh-forged armaments stood ready in cloistered armouries. Theirs would not be a full Space Marine Legion, but a Chapter -- a smaller, more tightly knit brotherhood, but one with numbers enough for the task at hand. In addition to the eight founders, thousands of others had been taken to the hidden satellite to serve as ancillaries, Chapter Serfs and the recruits that would form the original Brotherhoods (companies) of the Chapter. Malcador oversaw the initial creation of the Grey Knights, but he could not remain to oversee their evolution, so he selected one of the eight to lead the Chapter in the years to come. So did Janus become the first Supreme Grand Master-- the hand that would guide the Grey Knights through their first challenges. Before leaving Titan for the final time, Malcador forged one last enchantment of arcane technology and psychic accumen, greater than any that had come before it, known as the Warp Nexus. Titan vanished completely from its orbit, hidden from Horus in the most unlikely of refuges -- Malcador had anchored it amongst the tides of the Warp. Protected by Macro-Geller fields and sigilic rites of Malcador's own devising, Titan rode out the tumult of the Warp whilst the rest of the galaxy endured through the last solar months of the Horus Heresy and the tragedy of the Emperor's final battle. For many Terran centuries the Grey Knights dwelt on Titan while the Sigillite kept them hidden from reality, training their minds and arming themselves with the knowledge they would need to go forth and eradicate the daemonic from the material realm. For hundreds of subjective Terran years the Grey Knights trained and prepared, to not only armour their mind from psychic assault but also to turn it into the sharpest blade with which to sever their enemies' links with the corporeal. But knowledge was the most powerful and the greatest of the weapons that they armed themselves with. For hundreds of years the Grey Knights prepared to do battle with the Neverborn, drawing on the entire libraries at their disposal prepared for them by Malcador that were filled with books that listed the rituals of banishment, the rites of warding and, most importantly of all, the true names of hundreds of daemons. The Return When the Grey Knights did finally take their place back in the Imperium, less than a solar decade had passed in real time, but for the warriors of Titan many Terran centuries had elapsed. Men who were young during the twilight years of the war against Horus were now older than the oldest surviving veterans of the fragmenting Space Marine Legions. Those eight who had previously worn Power Armour of a differing colour had accrued more years than even the most ancient and venerable of Dreadnoughts. Yet, the galaxy was still in turmoil. The surviving Loyalist Primarchs bickered over how best to prevent a rebellion on the scale of Horus’ from ever happening again, while the defeated Traitors preyed upon worlds still loyal to the Golden Throne, as did newly emboldened xenos races. But against this backdrop, the malign influence of the Warp had not dwindled -- if anything, it had intensified -- and the Grey Knights threw themselves straight into the fray. Even at present, in the closing years of the 41st Millennium, the Grey Knights continue their never-ending and secret battle against the Forces of Chaos. The Citadel of Titan On Saturn's moon of Titan, nestled at the base of the shadow of Mount Anarch, the fortress-monastery of the Grey Knights, known as the Citadel of Titan, juts from the ice sheets and oceans of liquid methane like a jagged black spire. Built by the Emperor over ten thousand standard years ago, the Citadel of Titan has endured through countless ages of war and strife. Covered with dust and shadow, the dark edifice is festooned with Macrocannons and massive Lance turrets, their heavy barrels aimed out into the night. It is a forbidding sight that welcomes no visitors and brooks no trespass. In fact, even the existence of the citadel is a closely guarded secret, and in the populous space lanes of the Sol System vessels give this moon of Saturn a wide berth, their captains well aware that it does not pay to stray too close to the ominous moon. Long has this fortress stood. Its dusty, echoing halls are hung with battle honors stretching back almost ten thousand standard years, though few outside the Chapter would recognize the names of the conflicts inscribed in the faded gold lettering. Within the frigid halls of the citadel, Servitors and Chapter Serfs shuffle along empty corridors and tend to the millions of menial tasks required to keep the fortress running. Occasionally, a towering Grey Knight will stride past, always with purpose and always cloaked in the menacing air of barely-contained power. The citadel is the heart of the Chapter, a place for Battle-Brothers to rest, meditate and train between their endless battles. This mighty structure, designed to accommodate over a thousand Space Marines and all their weapons of war, stands largely silent and empty. The daemonic threat can strike anywhere across the galaxy and, in opposing that threat, most of the Grey Knights are scattered throughout the stars at any given time. Only in the Chamber of Trials, where the unceasing work of recruitment and training is carried out, does clamour reign. Elsewhere, the Grey Knights go about their duties in silent meditation, their thoughts bent upon their unending mission. Category:Warhammer Planets Category:Warhammer Category:Moons